


And I Feel Fine

by Mireille



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-02-23
Updated: 2005-02-23
Packaged: 2018-08-18 19:07:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8172632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: Xander and Giles and the end of the world.





	

**Author's Note:**

> There are major character deaths alluded to in this, though they occur off-screen. But since this ficlet is about the actual end of the world....

Sometimes, when the mornings were cold, Giles' hands were clumsy, and Xander would catch him frowning down at them as though asking them how they could be betraying him. 

Xander would usually do whatever it was Giles had been trying to--opening the jar, buttoning the shirt, picking up or cleaning up whatever Giles had dropped--and then he'd take Giles' hands in his, massaging the stiffness out the way Giles' hands weren't strong enough any more for him to do for himself. 

"Hey," he'd usually say softly, his mouth quirking upward in what passed for a smile these days, "it's not the end of the world."

Giles wouldn't smile back, and he usually wouldn't answer, but he never argued. 

He couldn't.  They both knew what the end of the world looked like, now.

***

There was a moment, once, and it feels like a million years ago, when this could have been stopped. 

He knows when Giles thinks that moment was; he knows, too, that it was a moment when Giles was distracted from what he had been doing because he'd been trying to help Buffy. He's pretty sure Giles thinks that if he'd let Buffy die, he could have saved the world. 

Buffy died anyway, and so did everyone else they knew, and the world was so far past saving now that Xander barely remembered what before-the-end looked like. If Giles ever told him that he felt guilty about it, Xander would have told him that he thought things were probably too far gone to stop by then, no matter what Giles had done. He might even have told him that he loved him more for not being able to turn his back on her. 

He would have meant both those things, too, but Giles didn't know that, because it was one of the things they hadn't ever said and probably wouldn't ever get around to. 

***

Sleeping in the same bed was purely a practical decision.

They couldn't keep the house warm at night, and though they started out with two beds in the same room, as the winter wore on without any signs of ever stopping, they couldn't even keep one bedroom warm enough. 

In one bed, though, they could share body heat, and they made it through the nights tolerably well, at least for the time being. It would get colder, they both knew, and there'd be a night they didn't make it through at all. For now, though, they got by. 

By unspoken agreement, they went to sleep on their separate sides of the bed, but every morning when Xander woke up, they were always holding onto one another. 

They were all they had left, Xander told himself. It didn't mean anything. 

Then again, nothing did, these days. 

***

It was midsummer the day it got too cold for the thermometer to register any temperature at all. Neither of them said anything. Neither of them had to; they both knew what was coming. 

That night, they sat together on the couch, Xander's head resting on Giles' shoulder as they waited. 

They didn't say anything about that, either. They didn't have to. 


End file.
